


A long road home

by enid_salt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Major Endgame Spoilers, Not a Fix-it for Endgame, This is cheaper than therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 00:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enid_salt/pseuds/enid_salt
Summary: After the dust settles.After the war is won.After everything else.What happens then?





	A long road home

**Author's Note:**

> There have been so many great fan arts depicting some sort of reunion of sorts for these two after Endgame. I've taken my own spin on it, added some extra moments of forgiveness, and even some really quite subtle comics references and cried my way through this. 
> 
> Enjoy! 
> 
> (and if you still haven't seen/been spoiled for Endgame, last chance to turn around.)

It doesn’t seems so clear at first. It’s just sensation and feeling, ethereal and reflecting among the senses. 

Then, it sorts of closes in. Settles into a specific setting. 

She’s on a boat on a nondescript body of water with only a star sitting on the horizon for a view. 

Salt in the air, wind rustling her hair, and light warmth kissing her skin. A cacophony of conscious experience. 

Breathtaking, for sure, but also a frozen backdrop that moves without any progress. 

Natasha sits and smiles. 

Takes it all in. 

Paradise. 

It was always there - in the back of her mind - the fantasy of leaving all the shadows and lies and covers behind to bare her soul in the sun and chase the never-ending expanse of the universe. Different methods, different companions if any, but always ending like this. 

Perfect, if a little lonely. 

Then the AC/DC blares in her ears. 

She doesn’t react - has no idea where to even look. Any travel in this space, much less a sudden arrival, doesn’t exactly abide by normal laws of physics. 

Then she hears him, “Agent Romanov, did you miss me?” 

She didn’t think she could even cry in a place like this but the tears stream down as she smiles and giggles. 

Tony comes into view and sits beside her. 

They take in the sweeping open . . . whatever this is in companionable silence. 

“Do you even know how to sail this thing?” 

Natasha chuckles again. 

“God, I really did miss you.” 

It’s not just whatever time has passed since she arrived and he followed. 

It’s about before, too. 

Things were different after. And even with the machine and the mission, there wasn’t a whole lot of talk about the five years plus apart. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, too.” 

She reaches for his hand, something steady and as real as anything around here can get. 

“Don’t be. It was a two-way street, communicating.” 

He smiles back at her and squeezes her hand in his. 

“Although,” she shakes her head, “what the fuck are you doing here so soon?” 

She knows this is something she'd have wanted but time is a fickle thing, all curves and slopes where there should be straightforward lines, and she doesn't know the rules anymore. 

He sits back, head lolling back, and guffaws. 

“I knew it. I knew you were going to ask! Also, Rogers may not be here yet but watch the language, young lady.” 

“I’m just saying,” Natasha pokes at his arm, “I sacrifice myself to save half the damn universe and then you just - what - follow me to overshadow me?”

Tony shrugs, “Not really. Had one exact chance to save literally the entire universe. So I made the call.” 

She knows that whatever it was, he would have been one of the only ones who could have made it. 

“And, to be fair, it wasn’t directly after you. More like, a good couple of hours. Got a full on battle for the ages in before. So. There.” 

She has to ask, “Did it work?” 

He nods. Once. Short and perfunctory. 

“Let’s be honest,” her hand grasps his arm to try and steady him, “you’d be too stubborn to show up here if it didn’t.” 

Tony laughs. 

“You know me well, Romanov.” 

He hesitates but then pushes forward and turns to face her to talk to her. 

“You know, this isn’t the first place I showed up.” 

He motions around and then just sort of claps his hands together. 

“It was different. Different places - different people.

“Different lives. I feel like that's the best way I could put it. Felt like forever. Lifetimes with them, squeezed into moments.” 

Natasha laughs a little bit, overwhelmed by the honest wonder still present in his eyes, “So I sat here alone while you get to live out a Mitch Albom novel?” 

Tony snorts, “Yeah well, if I had know I’d be getting The Lonely Island experience over something much more Deathcab for Cutie - which, to be honest, is what I would have expected, - I would have shuffled you in before. If, you know, that was a thing I could do.” 

They’ve been facing each other and talking for the last few - minutes? moments? - and she looks back out. 

Everything is crystal clear - much more than before - but it’s empty. Was emptier before Tony came strutting in but there's this sense of . . . unfinished business.

“Lack of faith beside, what did you really expect?” 

Tony shrugs, “A beach, maybe. I know Pep’s holding it down back there with the rest of them but I gotta say I hoped some version of her would be here.” 

Natasha hums a non-committal noise. 

“I’m sorry, you got me here, is this not what you were looking for, Agent Romanov?” 

Natasha sits forward and again grabs his hand, trying as she can, without sitting in his lap, to recreate the moment she put a watch on his wrist as Natalie Rushman a billion lives ago. 

“I wanted my family here. I think . . . that's what we're waiting for. What I'm gonna be waiting for. The rest of them.” 

She doesn't list them. It hurts, as much as something like that can at this point, to have to list the ones she wants to meet her on this great adventure to experience a perfect memory for as long as space and time will allow. 

Tony takes a beat to compute before he shakes his head and grins. He starts to laugh and cry, just a little bit, too. 

“Well then, I better go check out the rations.” 

He rises and motions toward the back, “I'll be in the back so just holler whenever the next in line shows up.” 

Natasha relaxes back into her deck chair, “Aye aye, captain.” 

Tony snorts, “I get to tell him you said that.” 

Natasha flips him the bird and knows he can see by the genial cackle he lets out. 

It's fine. They have time. 

All the time in the world and a long road home.


End file.
